1836.] Third Memoir of the Ancient Coins. 537 



II. — Third Memoir on the ancient Coins discovered at the site called 

 Beghrdm in the Kohistdn of Kabul. By Mr. Charles Masson. 

 Dated Kabul, May, 1836. 



Two notices on the site of Beghrdm, and of the nature of the coins 

 found at it, have already been made public in the pages of the Jour- 

 nal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The collection of its antique 

 treasures having been continued for three successive seasons, the 

 results may be worthy of being presented in one view, both for 

 exhibiting the exact state of discovery up to this time, and for 

 providing data on which to found inferences or to hazard conjectures 

 on the curious and intricate subject of Bactrian history and antiquities. 

 It is not the object of this memoir to convey a full account of the 

 present state of knowledge on these and other points, upon which, in 

 truth, light is only beginning to dawn ; but simply to narrate the fruits 

 of our own labors, happy if they prove useful to those, who, with 

 superior advantages, and when sufficient materials are collected, will, 

 no doubt, favor the world with some important work. We have, 

 therefore, only to descant upon the coins found at Beghrdm, and such, 

 allied or connected with them, whieh may have been procured by 

 ourselves in Afghanistan, and refrain in the same spirit from the 

 delineation of any coins not actually found by us ; and if such are 

 alluded to, it is from necessity, and to direct attention to them. 



The site of Beghrdm, whatever its original name may have been, 

 and whoever may have been its founder, yields evidence from 

 the coins found at it, of its existence as a city, which must, 

 at least, have flourished from the epoch of Euthydemus, the king 

 of Bactria, to that of the Mahommedan Caliphs — or for a pe- 

 riod of 900 years. We have speculated on the probability of its 

 pointing out the situation of Alexandria ad Caucasum, or ad cal- 

 cem Caucasi, and see no reason to change the opinion, viz. that 

 the honor of being considered such, must be assigned to it, or to 

 Nildb of Ghorbund. The detection of a coin of one of the Antiochi, 

 may prove that it flourished prior to the age of Euthydemus, as it 

 undoubtedly will have done, — and certain Hindu Brahminical coins* 

 described as Class Brahminical, may perhaps verify that it existed 

 subsequently to the Mahommedan Caliphs, or to the duration of their 

 sway in Afghdnistdn : — at all events, it would appear to have been 

 destroyed, in whatever manner, before the era, when coins with 

 Persian legends became current in these regions ; as our aggregate 

 collection of nearly 7,000 coins from its site, has not been contami- 



* Of the Rajput, or bull and horseman groupe. — Ed. 

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